The Last SEO Glossary You’ll Need
A comprehensive glossary of 500+ SEO terms with context on usage, examples, and more.
Table of Contents
Click the links below to jump to a letter section.
# A B C D E F G H I
J K L M N O P Q R
S T U V W X Y Z
#
- 10 blue links
- What is it?
- 10 blue links refers to the classic, older presentation of unpaid search results. Specifically, this pre-dates universal search and rich search features such as People Also Ask, Featured Snippets, video and so on.
- Usage:
- “10 blue links” or “blue links” is still used by some SEO strategists with longer tenure today. However, the current context is often specific, referring to organic search results that are only traditional listings with URL, title, description, and potentially sitelinks.
- Used in a sentence:
- That search result has a featured snippet, People Also Ask and 8 blue links.
- Related terms:
- Page 1, Search result, SERP
- What is it?
- 200 status code
- What is it?
- In layman’s terms, 200 typically refers to a successful page load in a browser or crawler. In more technical terms, 200 is a type of HTTP response code that indicates you were able to access a URL successfully without any errors or redirects.
- Usage:
- “200” is typically used in some kind of crawling or technical context. For instance, an SEO might refer the page as returning a 200, or wanting a sitemap to contain only 200s.
- Related terms:
- HTTP status code, 301, 302, 404
- What is it?
- 301 redirect
- What is it?
- In basic terms, 301 means your browser or crawler was redirected away from your intended page, to a new page. From a technical perspective, 301 is a type of HTTP status code that means a permanent redirect has been put in place of an old URL.
- Usage:
- If you’re an ecommerce retailer and you’re discontinuing a category or line of products, you may want to consider 301 redirects.
- Application:
- Let’s assume your category page was tenured and important. You want to A) Ensure that users and search engines don’t hit a dead end, and B) Ensure that link authority for that page isn’t wasted. If coolshop.com/old-category/ is being retired, you would issue a 301 redirect to -> coolshop.com/successor-page/. As long as that redirect rule is active, any links or traffic that hit the original URL should be immediately taken to the new page.
- Other technical details about a 301:
- A 301 redirect may serve as a “canonicalization signal to Google. Specifically, this means that in the example above, a 301 on /old-category/ should mean that it passes some link equity and some rankings to /successor-page/. Therefore the new landing page in time should replace the prior page within Google’s rankings. For most SEO consultants, webmasters or site owners, a 301 redirect should typically be your most-used redirect type.
- Related terms:
- HTTP status code, 302, redirect, canonical URL
- What is it?
- 302 redirect
- What is it?
- In basic terms, a 302 redirect is very similar to the previous term, a 301. It means a crawler or your browser was redirected to a new page. In more detail, a 302 redirect is known as a temporary redirect.
- How is a 302 redirect different from a 301?
- A URL that returns a 302 found (moved temporarily) redirect may remain in Google’s index for a period of time. This means you have a possibility of keeping some keyword rankings for the page being 302 redirected.
- Other technical details about a 302:
- 302 redirects aren’t as well-documented by SEO studies as 301s. There are some articles that suggest a 302 may not pass as much link equity as a 301 redirect. Generally, a 302 redirect should not be your go-to redirect.
- Usage:
- You may want to use a 302 redirect if you have a business need that requires removing a page from your site for a brief period. You would ideally have a planned time to reinstate the page before redirecting.
- Application:
- A medical company has a specialty provider who is taking a sabbatical. Due to the specialized nature of the provider’s practice, the company does not wish to pursue new patients for that specialty during the sabbatical. The SEO consultant may issue a 302 temporary redirect for the pages which cover the provider’s specialty. The redirects would point to the /services/ landing page during the sabbatical.
- Related terms:
- HTTP status code, redirect, 307 redirect, link authority
- What is it?
- 304 redirect
- I have not encountered a 304 redirect in 10 years of SEO.
- 307 redirect
- 308 redirect
- 403 error
- 404 error
- 410 gone
- 500 server error
A
- a href
- Ahrefs
- Above-the-fold
- Absolute URL
- Adobe
- Adobe Analytics
- Adobe Experience Manager
- Advanced Search Operator
- AJAX
- Algorithm
- Algorithm update
- Alt-text
- AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)
- Amplification
- Analytics
- Anchor text
- Apache
- API (Application Programming Interface)
- Article spinning
- Article syndication
- Artificial intelligence
- ASO (App Store Optimization)
- Async
- Audit
- Auto-generated text
- Author authority
- Authority
- Authority Site
- AWR (Advanced Web Ranking)
- AWS (Amazon Web Services)
B
- B2B
- B2C
- Backlinks
- Baidu
- Banner blindness
- Below-the-fold
- Bing
- Bing Webmaster Tools
- Bingbot
- Black box
- Black Hat SEO
- Blog
- Blog spam
- Bookmark
- Bots
- Bounce rate
- Branded keyword
- Brand mention link building
- Breadcrumb
- Bridge page
- Brightedge
- Broad match
- Broken link
- Browser
- Bundling
C
- Cached page
- Caching
- Caffeine
- CallRail
- Canonical tag
- Canonical URL
- ccTLD
- CDN (Content delivery network)
- Channel
- Churn and burn
- Citations
- Click bait
- Click-through depth
- Click-through rate
- Client-side rendering
- Cloaking
- CMS (Content management system)
- Co-citation
- Co-occurrence
- Comment spam
- Commercial intent
- Competition
- Competitor analysis
- Conductor
- Content
- Content gap analysis
- Content hub
- Content is king
- Content marketing
- Content scraping
- Content silo
- Content syndication
- Conversion
- Conversion form
- Conversion rate
- Core update
- Core web vitals
- Coremetrics
- Cornerstone content
- Correlation
- Cost-per-acquisition
- Cost-per-action
- Cost-per-click
- Cost-per-impression
- Crawl budget
- Crawl error
- Crawl demand
- Crawl directives
- Crawl rate
- Crawl rate limit
- Crawlability
- Crawler
- Crawling
- Critical rendering path
- CRO (Conversion rate optimization)
- Cross-linking
- CSS (Cascading style sheets)
- CTA (Call-to-action)
- Curated content
- Customer journey
D
- Data
- De-indexed
- Deep link
- Demandware
- DevTools
- Digital PR
- Direct traffic
- Directory
- Disavow
- Distance
- DMOZ
- DNS (Domain name server)
- DOM (Document object model)
- Do-follow
- An oxymoron that has accidentally become popular in SEO: By default, links pass authority and are “followed” by search engines unless marked otherwise. Using this term immediately signals that you are not a trustworthy SEO practitioner or strategist.
- Domain
- Domain age
- Domain authority
- Domain history
- Domain name
- Domain registrar
- Doorway page
- Drupal
- DuckDuckGo
- Duplicate content
- Dwell time
- Dynamic URL
E
- .edu links
- EAT
- E-commerce
- Editorial links
- Ego-bait
- Email outreach
- Engagement
- Engagement metrics
- Enhanced search
- Entity
- Entry page
- Evergreen content
- Exact match
- Expert document
- External link
F
- Faceted navigation
- Favicon
- Featured snippet
- Fetch and render
- File compression
- Filter words
- Findability
- First link priority
- Firefox
- Fold (the)
- Footer link
- Freshness
- Full stack SEO
G
- Gated content
- Geographic modifiers
- Geotargeting
- Google Ads
- Google Alerts
- Google Analytics
- Google Autocomplete
- Google bombing
- Google Business Profile
- Google Chrome
- Google dance
- Google Hummingbird
- Google Keyword Planner
- Google Knowledge Panel
- Google Maps
- Google My Business
- Google Panda
- Google Penguin
- Google Pigeon
- Google Quality Guidelines
- Google Sandbox
- Google Search Console
- Google Tag Manager
- Google Top-Heavy update
- Google Trends
- Googlebot
- .gov links
- Gray hat SEO
- Guest blogging
- Guest posting
- Guestographic
H
- H1-6 heading tag
- HARO (Help a Reporter Out)
- Head keyword
- Header tags
- Headline
- Hilltop algorithm
- Homepage
- Holistic SEO
- Hreflang
- .htaccess file
- HTML heading
- HTML sitemap
- HTML source code
- Hidden text
- Hit
- HTML
- HTTP
- HTTP status code
- HTTPS
- Hub page
- Hyperlink
I
- IBM Digital Analytics
- IIS
- Image
- Image carousel
- Image compression
- Image filename
- Image SEO
- Image sitemap
- Image title
- Impression
- Inbound link
- Inbound marketing
- Index
- Index coverage report
- Indexability
- Indexed page
- Indexing
- Infographic
- Information retrieval
- Informational query
- Informational SEO
- Intent
- Interactive marketing
- Internal link
- International SEO
- Interstitial
- IP address
J
- JavaScript
- JavaScript Rendering
- JavaScript SEO
- JSON-LD
K
- Kanban
- Keyword
- Keyword (not provided)
- Keyword cannabilization
- Keyword categorization
- Keyword density
- Keyword difficulty
- Keyword frequency
- Keyword funnel
- Keyword ranking
- Keyword research
- Keyword stem
- Keyword stuffing
- KML sitemaps
- Knowledge Graph
- Knowledge panel
- KOB analysis
- KPI (Key performance indicator)
L
- Landing page
- Lazy loading
- Lead
- Lead magnet
- Link
- Link accessibility
- Link authority
- Link bait
- Link building
- Link diversity
- Link exchange
- Link farm
- Link hoarding
- Link juice
- See also: link authority. An ironic or sarcastic term that describes the authority or equity a page passes along because of its link profile. Related: link popularity.
- Link popularity
- Link profile
- Link reclamation
- Link rot
- Link scheme
- Link spam
- Link velocity
- Link volume
- Linked unstructured citations
- Local business schema
- Local citation
- Local intent
- Local pack
- Local search
- Local SEO
- Log file
- Log file analysis
- Login
- Long-tail keyword
- Lost link
- LSI (Latent semantic indexing)
M
- Machine learning
- Main keyword
- Manual penalty
- Map pack
- Marchex
- Meta description
- Meta keywords
- Meta redirect
- Meta refresh
- Meta robots tag
- Meta title
- Meta tag
- Metadata
- Metric
- Mid-chunk keyword
- Minification
- Mirror site
- Mobile-first indexing
- Mobile-friendly website
- Mobile optimization
- Moz
- MQL (Marketing-qualified lead)
N
- Natural link
- Navigation
- Navigational query
- Negative SEO
- .Net
- NGINX
- Niche
- Noarchive
- Nofollow
- Noindex
- Noopener
- Noreferrer
- Not provided
O
- Off-page SEO
- On-page SEO
- Open Graph
- Opt-in
- Opt-out
- ORM (Online reputation management)
- Organic
- Organic links
- Organic ranking
- Organic search
- Organic search results
- Organic traffic
- Orphan page
- Outbound link
- Outreach marketing
- Over-optimization
P
- Page 1
- Page authority
- Page cloaking
- Pages per session
- Page speed
- Synonyms: Page load speed, page load time.
- Page title
- PageRank
- PageSpeed Insights
- Pageview
- Pagination
- Paid links
- Paid search
- Paid search engine result
- Panda
- Payday loans
- Panguin
- Penalty
- Penguin
- PBN (Private blog network)
- PDF (Portable document format)
- People Also Ask (PAA)
- Persona
- Personalization
- PHP
- PPP
- Porn, pills, and poker. Often used as shorthand for the vice categories that attract high amounts of webspam and link spam. The prominence of black hat SEO activity is often due to the lucrative financial nature of these categories. Related: poison words.
- Piracy
- Pogo-sticking
- Poison words
- Position
- PPC (Pay-per click)
- Primary keyword
- Programming language
- Prominence
- Protocol
- Pruning
- Pull channel
- Pull marketing
- Purchased links
- See paid links.
- Push channel
- Push marketing
Q
- QDD (Query deserves diversity)
- QDF (Query deserves freshness)
- Qualified traffic
- Quality content
- Quality link
- Query
R
- RankBrain
- Ranking
- Ranking factor
- Reciprocal link
- Redirect
- Referral traffic
- Referrer
- Regional keywords
- Reinclusion
- Relevance
- Relative link
- Rendering
- Render-blocking
- Reputation management
- Resource pages
- Responsive design
- Rich snippet
- ROAS (Return on ad spend)
- Robots.txt
- ROI (Return on investment)
- RSS feed
- Run-of-site link
S
- Schema.org
- Scraped content
- Scraping
- Scroll depth
- Scrum
- Search algorithm
- Search demand
- Search engine
- Search engine poisoning
- Search forms
- Search history
- Search index
- Search intent
- Search quality rater guidelines
- Search results
- Search term
- Search volume
- Seasonality
- Secondary keyword
- Seed keywords
- SEM (Search engine marketing)
- Sentiment
- SEO (Search engine optimization)
- SEO audit
- SEO silo
- SERP (Search engine results page)
- SERP features
- Share of voice
- Short-tail keyword
- Sitecore
- Sitelinks
- Sitemap
- Sitewide link
- Social media
- Social signal
- Spam
- Spider
- Split-testing
- Sponsored link
- SSL
- SRCSET
- Status code
- Stop word
- Structured data
- Subdomain
- Subfolder
T
- Taxonomy
- Technical SEO
- TF-IDF (Term Frequency x Inverse Document Frequency)
- Thin content
- Thumbnail
- Time-on-page
- Title tag
- TLD (Top-Level Domain)
- TLS (Transport Layer Security)
- Top-Heavy
- Traffic
- Traffic potential
- Transactional query
- Trust
- TrustRank
U
- UGC (User-Generated Content)
- UI (User interface)
- Universal search
- Unique visit
- Unnatural links
- URL (Uniform resource locator)
- URL folder
- URL parameters
- URL slug
- Usability
- User agent
- User engagement
- User-friendliness
- UTM parameters
- UX (User experience)
V
- Vertical search
- Video SEO
- Viral content
- Virtual assistant
- Visit
- Voice search
W
- Web address
- Webmaster
- Webmaster guidelines
- Webpage
- Website
- Website architecture
- Website authority
- Website cloaking
- Website navigation
- Website quality
- Webspam
- White hat
- Word count
- WordPress
X
- X-robots-tag
- Xenu Link Sleuth
- XML (Extensible markup language)
- XML Sitemap
Y
- Yahoo
- Yandex
- YMYL (Your Money, Your Life)
- Yoast
- YouTube
Z
- Zero-click search